Economically optimal safety targets for interdependent flood defences in a graph-based approach with an efficient evaluation  of expected annual damage estimates

Dupuits, Egidius Johanna Cassianus; Diermanse, Ferdinand Lennaert Machiel; Kok, Matthijs

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-1893-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-1893-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-1893-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 11

Research article

|

13 Nov 2017

Research article |

| 13 Nov 2017

Economically optimal safety targets for interdependent flood defences in a graph-based approach with an efficient evaluation of expected annual damage estimates

Egidius Johanna Cassianus Dupuits, Ferdinand Lennaert Machiel Diermanse, and Matthijs Kok

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Final revised paper (published on 13 Nov 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 02 Feb 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of NHESS-2017-12', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Mar 2017
- AC1: 'Response to review', Guy Dupuits, 11 May 2017
RC2: 'Referee report on Dupuits et al (2017)', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Mar 2017
- AC2: 'Response to review', Guy Dupuits, 11 May 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (11 May 2017) by Heidi Kreibich

AR by Guy Dupuits on behalf of the Authors (21 Jun 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (22 Jun 2017) by Heidi Kreibich

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (29 Jun 2017)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (13 Jul 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of revised version of Using graphs to find economically optimal safety targets for multiple lines of flood defences

To me the main criteria for acceptance is how well the authors have addressed the other reviewers concerns regarding novelty and potential plagiarism. I will leave it to that reviewer to assess that issue.

My main concern was that the paper appeared rather messy with a poor method description and an amount of simulations similar to what is done in traditional CBA. It seems that the authors have responded to the latter by only comparing to LP, which undoubtedly contains more simulations than the proposed method.

The definition of risk has been improved substantially, but there are still errors and inconsistencies. In particular, the authors throughout the paper discusses how AED (normally denoted EAD, Expected Annual Damage) is affected. But the term is never defined. Equation (1) defines TC but the relationship between TC and EAD is never stated. It would also be nice to define Eq (1) properly. I assume that you make the summaztion over forecast horizon, but Figure 1 could indicate something else. Also, the choice of forecast horizon is not trivial when you make projections over several centuries. Further, if Eq (2) should be correct D_flood should be defined as the expected loss incurred due to flooding, not the annual expected loss incurred due to flooding.

Another issue related to the scoping of the paper is Fig 3 and corresponding discussion on page 3. There the main driver for the paper seems to be a more holistic view of flood defences, because several defences might impact one another. In Fig 3 the main argument seems to be due to risk of dike breaches, but this is never touched upon again later in the paper.

So while I still see some value of visualizing a structured approach to identification of (future) investments I still cannot recommend publication in its current form. Language should also be improved, in particular I would recommend a consistant use of tense. I have not read the following chapters in detail but will do so if the authors get a third chance and have responded to the above comments.

In doubt about whether this is minor or major revision. I have ticked major because they have already been asked to improve the above issues once.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (further review by Editor) (14 Jul 2017) by Heidi Kreibich

AR by Guy Dupuits on behalf of the Authors (24 Jul 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (17 Sep 2017) by Heidi Kreibich

AR by Guy Dupuits on behalf of the Authors (26 Sep 2017) Manuscript

Short summary

Flood defences, such as levees, emergency storage basins or storm surge barriers, can be designed as multiple lines of defence. If each line of defence has a number of possible levels, the total number of possible system configurations can be large. This paper presents an approach that is able to find an optimal configuration including future adaptations of such a flood defence system, based on an economic cost–benefit analysis.